Real estate agents have discovered that using words such as "family", "comfort", "safe" and "sunny" in a house advertisement elicits a positive response from prospective buyers. On the other hand, according to Home sales need a 'sunny' side, certain other words - "basement", "motivated seller" and "cute and charming" (which is evidently code for "small rooms") - are likely to repel buyers.

I had some fun interpreting that peculiar language known as "real estate speak" for the book I co-authored: Buying Your First Home: An Essential Kiwi Guide. (No, this is not a shameless advertisement - all sold out, sorry.)

I was especially struck by the way the most humdrum feature can be gussied up to sound far more covetable than it actually is. In a little two-column box with the headings "What the advertisement says" and "What it usually means" I decoded ten popular real estate clichés:

At about the same time, the folks at Unconditional were thinking along similar lines. They listed a few pearls of real estate wisdom borrowed from a book called It's Not Rocket Science and Other Irritating Modern Clichés.

These are the four I wish I'd thought of myself:

• "Convenient for local schools" means "Convenient for several thousand local schoolchildren passing through your front garden; their parents parking their SUVs across your lawn and half a ton of sweet wrappers stuffed through your letterbox every morning and afternoon."• "Original features" means "The place hasn't had any work done on it since 1974."• "Up-and-coming area" means "If you move into this area you will be a bit like a pioneer staking your claim in a wild, lawless territory."• "Vibrant area" means "Probably vibrating with the sound of 500-watt loudspeaker systems, the rumble of riot-squad trucks and sub-machine-gun fire."

One phrase beloved of real estate agents continues to confound me. I can't figure out if "deceptively large" means a house is large but seems small or small but seems large. But my favourite cliché is one that has been around for donkey's years: "des res with all mod cons" is short for "desirable residence with all modern conveniences". Spoken in your very best Kath-&-Kim-inspired voice, it's certified real-estate-cliché gold.

Shelley Bridgeman is a truck-driving, supermarket-going, horse-riding mother-of-one who is still married to her first husband. As a Herald online blogger, she specialises in First World Problems and delves fearlessly into the minutiae of daily life. Twice a week, she shares her perspective on a pressing current issue and invites readers to add their ten cents’ worth to the debate.